Do you run a nonprofit? If so, then knowing about the best free tools for non profit organizations is a necessity. Too many people spend money needlessly on inefficient tools and services that can actually cause more harm than good. At the end of the day, your goal is to help people as efficiently as possible—not to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on expensive software.
Nonprofit organizations are at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to data management. Not only do they have less experience with certain tools, but they also have less money to spend. If you’re running a nonprofit organization, you need the right software and you need it cheap. We’ve compiled a list of free non profit software that we recommend for all non profit organizations.
Zapier
Zapier is a powerful automation platform that brings more than 1,500 apps together to sync responses and information in more ways than if you used them individually. You’ll be able to send form responses directly to your CRM solution, cloud storage platform, project management board, calendar applications, email campaign tool, and more, without the need for any data entry.
Zapier offers nonprofits a 15-percent discount on any of their plans. Your organization can enjoy premium features, leverage the benefits of automating numerous tasks across the organization, and save money at the same time.
Trello
Trello lets you convert Jotform form submissions directly into new Trello cards instead of entering the data manually. This project and time management app facilitates file and idea sharing, task updates, and team assignments. The card system enables team members to see and understand what’s involved with a new project, including due dates and scope. These cards are ideal for work involving donor leads, campaigns, and support requests.
Trello now offers a significant discount for nonprofits — 75 percent off Trello Business Class and Enterprise plans.
Zoho
Zoho CRM lets you instantly add new contacts — such as potential donors, patrons, and volunteers — to your CRM system. As a sales automation solution, Zoho CRM helps your nonprofit gather leads efficiently so you can spend more time converting these contacts into long-term donors and volunteers. The data in your Jotform form seamlessly and accurately transfers to the same fields in your CRM.
Zoho provides discounts to nonprofits. Contact the company for information on a nonprofit discount tailored to your organization’s needs.
ActiveCampaign
This integration lets you update contacts and deals in your sales automation platform. You can use both Jotform contact forms and lead-gen forms to sync submission data with your ActiveCampaign account. This speeds up your ability to create new contacts and add notes and tags to each, further reducing the time spent updating email lists and creating personalized messaging for your donors.
ActiveCampaign provides a 20-percent discount to active and registered nonprofit organizations.
Constant Contact
The Constant Contact integration with Jotform makes it easy to instantly add and update contacts to your fundraising and organization email lists. This email marketing platform helps nonprofits focus on lead generation and fundraising efforts with targeted donors and volunteers. The automation process ensures that your email lists are accurate and up to date, which means your contacts will receive email announcements, newsletters, and more from your organization, increasing your conversion rate.
Constant Contact offers a 20-percent discount to nonprofit organizations.
Fundly
Fundly is a leading crowdfunding platform built for nonprofits of all sizes. While many online fundraising platforms are designed for individual projects, nonprofit organizations need a more complete set of tools and data features.
Fundly’s complete set of customization features, integrations, contact importation tools, and mobile-optimized pages let even the smallest nonprofits take a professional approach to crowdfunding. Plus, there are no minimum fundraising requirements in order to keep your funds! If you’re raising money for a specific project suitable for a crowdfunding campaign, Fundly is an excellent choice for nonprofit organizations.
Mobilize
Mobilize is the top volunteer recruitment and management platform for nonprofits. If your organization relies on volunteers to support your events and campaigns (both in-person and virtual), Mobilize is a smart choice. Their platform lets you easily post new events to a rapidly growing network of over 2 million individuals looking for their next volunteer opportunities.
Strategic recruiting and volunteer management are easily within reach for growing organizations with Mobilize. Its unrivaled network of volunteers and partners plus its complete set of management, communication, and data reporting features have made this the trusted platform for small nonprofits all the way up to presidential campaigns.
Buffer
Buffer provides software to help organizations of all sizes better manage and analyze their social media marketing efforts. For growing nonprofits, effective social media marketing is essential for reaching new audiences, staying in touch with supporters, and promoting campaigns.
Buffer’s social media marketing platform includes everything you’ll need to get started, including features for visual planning, post scheduling, Instagram Story planning, and analyzing your performance and audience engagement. Buffer offers a free basic plan to support 3 social media accounts, perfect for small nonprofits just beginning to build their social media presence.
Double the Donation
Double the Donation is a leading software provider that specializes in helping nonprofits raise more through corporate philanthropy. Matching gift programs in which companies financially match donations to nonprofits made by their employees can significantly boost your fundraising results.
Double the Donation’s comprehensive database of corporate philanthropy information and search tools simplify the entire process for your team and your donors. Although Double the Donation’s tools aren’t free, investing in matching gifts software is a smart move for growing nonprofits. Empowering your donors to have a bigger impact helps you strengthen those relationships over the long run, raising more and more support over time.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp helps organizations and businesses take charge of an essential aspect of digital marketing: email. As one of the most direct ways to communicate with supporters, email is crucial for nonprofit organizations that want to share updates and stay on the minds of donors.
Mailchimp’s email features make it easy to create and optimize email campaigns, import your contact lists, and analyze open rates and engagement. Their free starter accounts include everything you’ll need to get started marketing like a pro, including basic email templates, landing page creation, campaign management, and marketing CRM features.
Fundraising Report Card
Fundraising Report Card is free nonprofit software for helping organizations get a handle on their analytics. With dashboards to review a complete range of fundraising and engagement metrics, this tool can help you track your performance and compare it against industry benchmarks.
For growing nonprofits, advanced analytics often gets pushed to the side or delayed while you handle more immediate concerns. With Fundraising Report Card, it’s easy to start analyzing your data like a pro. With more data-driven insights, you can continually improve your campaigns to raise more over time and strengthen your nonprofit’s position
Google for Nonprofits
Google for Nonprofits is the free nonprofit software suite offered by the search engine and internet services giant. You might already be familiar with Google Analytics as the best way to track and measure engagement with your nonprofit’s website, but did you know Google offers other products and perks specifically for nonprofits?
The Google for Nonprofits suite includes free or discounted access to enterprise-level G suite tools (like Gmail, Drive, Docs, and more), the YouTube Nonprofit Program, and unique Google Earth and Maps features. Best of all, Google offers nonprofits free Google Ad grants, which ensure your nonprofit appears first on search results for the most important keywords your donors are searching.
Wave
Wave provides free and inexpensive accounting software for small organizations like startups and new nonprofits. Properly tracking your revenue and expenses is essential as a nonprofit, as you need to report your financial activities to the IRS annually in order to keep your tax-exempt status.
With tools like Wave, staying on top of your nonprofit’s accounting is easier than ever. Their suite of free features includes a complete toolkit for accounting, invoicing, and receipt scanning, everything else you’ll need to handle your nonprofit’s finances professionally without breaking the bank.
Salesforce Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP)
Salesforce has been the world’s leading database platform for several years and for good reason! The software’s highly customizable and flexible structure makes it easy for organizations of all shapes and sizes to create their perfect CRM or database. With the Salesforce Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP), nonprofits get access to a free version of the database platform specifically pre-configured for nonprofits.
The full implementation process for the Salesforce NPSP can be quite intensive, but this free database software for nonprofits is a gamechanger with the right strategies and resources to back it up. The Salesforce ecosystem of integrated apps (including our own suite of tools!) makes it easy to create your own unique software toolkit.
Nonprofit Treasurer
As its name suggests, Nonprofit Treasurer was created specifically to meet the needs of small nonprofit organizations, such as parent-teacher associations, homeowners associations, professional association chapters, youth sports clubs, and more. With its integrated reporting and budgeting tools, this program is this free and easy-to-use. It is designed to make life easier for volunteer treasurers and other board members when it comes to financial management and oversight, along with all nonprofit accounting needs.
GNUCash
This free software program can be useful for small nonprofit organizations. It is an open source program that has some characteristics of Quicken and some small business accounting features. This software will allow you to create a multitude of reports, but you may need to export some data in Excel to complete them. You can use this software on Windows, Mac, or Linux systems.
Adminsoft Accounts
This software is a full double-entry accounting system and even allows you to manage payroll if needed. It will run on any system running a Windows platform and on Mac or Linux machines in certain situations.
BS1 Free Accounting
BS1 software works for small businesses and allows you to establish your files in different currency formats, which would allow you to manage international billing or purchasing. You can also create user-defined financial statements. You can upgrade for a fee to get your software customized if you would like.
Conclusion:
Nonprofits are the backbone of American society. Through their work and dedication to others, they enrich life for everyone. There are a huge number of software applications available to help non profits better manage resources, complete tasks, and communicate with constituents. But not all nonprofits have equal access to these resources. Let me show you how nonprofit organizations can find and use these tools without breaking the bank.